Book 1
February 2025
Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXMQQT8J
Welcome to Caldryn Parliament. Golden Age mysteries in the Realm of science fiction and fantasy.
Recalled from the frontier, the new Warden of Caldryn Parliament is well aware she’s not a popular choice, but she never expected to portal into a murder scene.
Nor did she anticipate acquiring such a unique partner.
Now, Vanda Kavanagh must discover the truth of a politician’s death, unravel the mystery of her sabotaged wards, and survive her family.
Excerpt
Vanda Kavanagh, future Warden of Caldryn Parliament, exited the portal with her long coat swirling and void stars clinging to it. When she’d entered the portal she’d had a plan. Now, seven steps later, she had a problem.
Said problem wriggled in a warded pocket.
Caldryn Portal was always busy, but at the beginning of the Spring Recess it abandoned any pretension of offering luxury travel and turned into an efficient machine, spitting politicians and their staff out from the Realm’s center of government to their home planets, moons, and space stations.
Slotting in Vanda’s arrival portal, initiated on Itsasoa, had cost her grandmother a truly colossal amount of money, and even more in terms of favors owed.
If one was to judge by Evelyn Kavanagh’s disapproving expression the cost wasn’t worth it.
The matriarch of the Kavanagh family appeared younger than her seventy-two years. Her undergarments were as unyielding as her mind and spirit, and gave the illusion of toned middle-age to her expensively clad body. Today’s suit was a light heather tweed with moderate heels in the same honey-gold. Her upswept silver hair defied the wind from the portal. That wasn’t due to magic, but to the hairspray that clung as a faint undernote to whatever perfume she wore.
Vanda suspected that Evelyn had long since ceased to notice the smell of the hairspray or she’d never have permitted it to become part of her personal scent. “Good afternoon, Grandmother.”
Pale blue eyes examined Vanda’s appearance, and narrowed in unspoken criticism. As a child Vanda had suffered that expression several times. It meant that Evelyn had noticed a Kavanagh family member failing to live up to their name, but would berate the offender at a more suitable time. Evelyn tilted her face to receive an air kiss. “Welcome home.”
Scanning the crowd, Vanda ignored the social cue to fake affection. “Everyone seems worried. Relieved, but worried.”
“The previous portal destabilized.”
Read on…